Accessibility Statement
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What is accessibility?
Accessibility involves two key issues: first, how users with disabilities access electronic information, and second, how web content designers and developers enable web pages to function with assistive devices used by individuals with disabilities.
For the user with a disability, the challenge is to identify tools that provide the most convenient access to web-based and other electronic information. For the web content designer/developer, the challenge is to remove the obstacles that prevent accessibility tools from functioning effectively. In many cases, these challenges are relatively simple to overcome, but sometimes the solutions require some additional thought and effort.
What is Section 508?
In the United States, Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act mandates that web content maintained by the federal government must be made accessible to people with disabilities.
How do I create an accessible site?
The first step in implementing an accessibility policy is establishing an approach to accessible design with respect to architecture and techniques. The goal is to standardize site structure and page creation to streamline workflow and eliminate common development mistakes. Establishing standards for site architecture and design techniques provides web content designers and developers with a common starting point for their designs as well as a common language for discussing the issues involved.
When developing an approach, two groups need to be considered: novice web content designers and developers, and those with more expertise. For novices, it is important that the approach make accessibility easy to achieve. Providing templates, library objects, and other shortcuts for creating accessible pages are some effective strategies. For advanced web content designers and developers, the approach should take advantage of this group's skill set but should streamline the process of accessible design. Advanced designers and developers can employ CSS, XHTML, and data-driven models to provide a rich and more customizable feature set to users.
When creating an accessible site, one of the first decisions that need to be made is whether the site should be static or dynamic. A static site does not change as the user loads it. To edit static pages, developers/designers must open the HTML document and edit the pages individually. A dynamic site connects a web page to a database. Information on the page may change depending on the user. To edit dynamic pages, developers/designers must edit the database that stores the information.
When deciding whether to make a site static or dynamic, developers/designers should consider the capabilities of the organization. Dynamic pages are more complex to set up, but easier to maintain. They also require an application server, such as Macromedia ColdFusion 7. The staff's level of expertise, the availability of hardware and software, and the availability of staff for maintenance will play a part in this decision.
The following three site design models span a continuum from completely
dynamic to completely static. As expertise and experience with accessibility
and data-driven design evolve, every organization needs to find the model
that best fits its own needs.
Data-Driven Model
Data-driven websites are sites where the site content is stored in a database. Each web page is dynamically generated by retrieving content from the database. The data-driven model allows the process of accessible design to be streamlined in two ways. First, a web content designer/developer can enter content into the database using a form on a web page. This allows individuals throughout the organization to add content to the site without learning HTML or an authoring tool. This is an ideal solution when there are numerous content developers with little or no experience actually building web pages.
Second, a data-driven model automates the process of page creation and allows visitors to the site to select the content format that best serves their needs. Thus, the same page can be delivered dynamically in a text-only format, a full-graphics HTML version, or a rich media format like Macromedia Flash 8. When a static HTML site has multiple versions, the typical problem is that only one version is actively maintained. Maintaining multiple versions of a static site requires much more work than maintaining a dynamic site. With dynamic sites, all versions are dynamically updated to reflect the latest content.
An organization should choose a data-driven model only if it has the hardware and software infrastructure to support it. This infrastructure should include a server running ColdFusion 7, or another dynamic server application. In addition, there should be sufficient resources to maintain the server as well as to develop dynamic pages.
Until an organization has a sufficient level of expertise, the website
administrator must not only be able to maintain the web server but also
to support web content developers.
Static Site Model
A static website offers more simplicity up front than a dynamic site but requires a bit more maintenance in the long run. It is helpful to use the Template and Library objects features in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 to streamline the process of accessible static content design. Another useful authoring tool is Macromedia Contribute 3. In Contribute 2, website administrators can specify accessibility settings.
Using templates involves creating a set of pages in Dreamweaver 8 that cover common page types within the site and incorporate accessibility features. Using templates enables the website administrator or senior designers to resolve a problem or make a design change across an entire site by fixing only the template. Templates include all of the standard elements on a page, such as organization logos, navigation bars, and copyright notices. These elements are locked; novice web content developers can then add content, using Contribute 3, to the other parts of the page while maintaining consistent and accessible pages.
It is particularly important to provide accessibility training for the front-end web content designers and developers who will develop the templates.
Dreamweaver 8 libraries provide a means of storing page elements such
as images and text that will be reused or updated frequently throughout
a website. When a page element is saved as a library item, it can be placed
on multiple web pages, and all copies can be updated automatically from
the library. Using libraries, it is easy to create and edit a full range
of accessibility features across multiple pages. For example, an accessible
navigation bar with the desired alt text can be created and saved in a
library. The designer/developer can then drag the navigation library item
onto multiple pages or templates while retaining the ability to edit them
all at once.
Combined Model
In circumstances where knowledge or experience with dynamic design is
limited but the necessary hardware and software are available, an approach
combining data-driven and static elements may be appropriate. The designer/developer
should begin with a single instance of dynamic design. For example, a
single page that needs frequent updating can be developed by a novice
or inexperienced designer. As organizational expertise with data-driven
models increases, so can the site's reliance on dynamic pages. Additionally,
the sophistication and maturity of the dynamic techniques used in a site
may increase as well. Ongoing training for both the website administrator
and web content designers and developers is essential to the success of
these models.
When creating an accessible site, it is important to have a standard for
tools and techniques throughout the site, to enable web content designers
and developers to be consistent in their approach. Some common benefits
of standardization are described here.
Tools
An important part of implementing an accessibility policy is ensuring that designers and developers have the appropriate tools. In addition, these tools should support novice content developers as well as more sophisticated users in creating accessible pages. Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 with ColdFusion 7 are good choices to support broad skill levels. Dreamweaver 8 supports visual editing and drag-and-drop creation of accessibility features and still enables developers to use more sophisticated techniques as their expertise grows.
Another important reason for standardizing tools is to simplify training
related to accessibility. Training should connect an accessibility issue
with the related technique and give step-by-step instructions for employing
that technique. Using a single application across an organization eliminates
the need for superfluous explanations and enables the training to cover
a greater number of issues. Time is a valuable, limited resource when
it comes to accessibility, given the range of issues and techniques that
merit attention.
Techniques
Standardizing techniques throughout an organization provides web content
designers and developers with a concrete and consistent approach to some
of the more subjective accessibility issues. Some techniques to consider
are navigation, images, Cascading Style Sheets, plug-ins, and design-support
mechanisms.
Navigation
Navigation poses a number of issues related to accessibility. Two issues in particular require a consistent approach. The first issue is the use of a skip navigation mechanism. According to Section 508, “a method shall be provided that permits users to skip repetitive navigation links.” A skip navigation mechanism enables screen reader users to avoid listening to every link in the navigation bar on each page. Typically, the designer/developer creates skip navigation by linking a small transparent image at the top of a page to an anchor just before the main content. The alt text description for this image would read “skip to content” or “skip navigation.”
The second key navigation issue relates to the use of JavaScript rollovers. Rollovers that display drop-down lists or disjointed images elsewhere on the page pose particular challenges. While some screen readers are now able to read JavaScript, the majority still cannot; therefore, the links and content from a JavaScript rollover are unavailable to most screen reader users. Pull-down menus are possible but require Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) layers with JavaScript rather than JavaScript alone. These techniques are complex and require significant design planning. In addition, these tools may benefit from the use of multiple skip navigation mechanisms. Standardizing the development of accessible JavaScript rollovers in navigation significantly simplifies their consistent implementation.
Images
Images benefit from standardization in at least two areas. First, it is helpful to standardize and centrally store alt text for commonly used images across the site. Storing images as library items in Dreamweaver 8 enables designers to add the appropriate alt text only once and use it consistently on all pages. Other designers and developers can then be confident that the correct alt text is there when they place the library item on a page.
Second, a long description should be used for images requiring alt text longer than 50 characters. Multiple strategies are available for adding long descriptions to images. The first is using the longdesc attribute. The longdesc attribute provides a screen reader user with a link to the long description on a separate page.
A second method for adding long descriptions is using the d-link. A d-link is a hyperlinked letter d (for description) to the right of an image, as shown here. The letter d is linked to a separate page with a longer description of the image.
A third method, very similar to the use of the d-link, places a caption next to the image and links the caption to the descriptive page. Offering the same functionality as the d-link, captions are often easier to integrate into a design scheme.
Standardizing the implementation of long descriptions is important to
content developers, but also to users, who will consistently know where
to find descriptions.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) offer significant benefits for accessibility.
While the use of CSS is not mandated by Section 508, national standards
in the U.K. and Canada do require use of CSS.
When site text is formatted with CSS, users can override styles to format
text to meet their needs. This allows users with limited vision or colorblindness
to change the size or color of text, for example. It is important to note
that if HTML is used to format text, this formatting overrides all CSS
styles, including user-defined styles; therefore, if the use of CSS for
formatting text is standardized, it should be applied consistently across
the site.
Plug-ins
Plug-ins enable browsers to display a particular file format. Each plug-in requires a distinct strategy for accessibility. Under Section 508, the use of plug-ins must comply with standards for software. Similar to standards for web content, the software standards also require that the plug-in function without a mouse.
Use of video and audio content requires a synchronized text alternative,
typically in the form of closed captioning. If an organization frequently
uses multimedia on its site, it should invest in hardware and software
tools that support closed captioning.